This is the third UNESCO Forum for Science and Culture. Our focusthroughout the series has been on the interplay of science, tradition, andvalues in mankind’s search for a sustainable future. At the first forum, heldinVenice in 1986, the specter of nuclear annihilation loomed as the principalperceived threat to human survival. By the time of the second forum, inVancouver in 1989, it was the impending disruption of global ecologicalbalances that seemed most critical. Today, in 1992, the nuclear threat mayhave receded. But the ecological crisis seems to be worsening, and we arefaced with problems of socioeconomic collapse: in the former Soviet Unionand eastern Europe one of the world’s two premier socioeconomic systemshas already collapsed, and in the West and the Third World pressures ofethnic rivalries and economic malaise are tending to make many formerlyprosperous and stable countries increasingly ungovernable.Science has been perceived as the major cause of these problems. It gaveman the capacity to ignite a nuclear holocaust, to disrupt the ecosystem on aglobal scale, and to effect swift, massive and untested social and economicchanges. At a deeper level of causation, science has revised man’s basic ideaof himself in relation to nature. In traditional cultures nature was perceivedas a mysterious provider, to be revered and deified. But Francis Bacon,herald of science, proclaimed a new gospel for the age of science: man,abetted by science, was to achieve the conquest of nature.At an even deeper level of causation the Cartesian separation between theminds of men and the rest of nature, which was the key to the seventeenthcenturyscientific revolution, eroded the foundations of moral thought, andleft man adrift with no rationally coherent image of himself within nature.He proclaimed himself to be, on the one hand, ruler of nature, yet was, onthe other hand, according to the very scientific theories that were to givehim dominion, a mere mechanical cog in a giant mindless machine. Hewas stripped of responsibility for his acts, since each human action waspreordained prior to the birth of species, and was reduced to an isolatedautomaton struggling for survival in a meaningless universe.In the face of these science-induced difficulties one must ask: Whoneedsscience? What we obviously need is strong remedial action—a curtailingof science-inflated population growth, consumption, waste, and poverty.But howcan the required global actions be brought about? Direwarningshave minimal effects on populations inured to media hype. An immediatedisaster at one’s doorstep might suffice, but by then full global recovery maybe out of reach.

To change human actions globally one must change human beliefs globally.Global beliefs, to the extent they they exist at all, are the beliefs generatedby science. However, some of the most important science-generatedbeliefs that now pervade the world are beliefs that arose from science duringthe seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and are now outdated.Twentieth-century science has wrought immense changes in precisely thosebeliefs that have in large measure created our present problems.

Science and a New Vision of Nature:

Twentieth-century science yields a conception of nature that is profoundlydifferent from the picture provided by the seventeenth century science ofNewton, Galileo, and Descartes. Three changes are particularly important.The first great twentieth-century change is the dethronement of determinism.Determinism is the idea that each stage of the coming into beingof the physical universe is completely controlled by what has already comeinto being. A failure of determinism means that what is happening, orcoming into being, at certain stages of the evolutionary process is not completelyfixed by what has come before. Those aspects of the evolutionaryprocess that are not completely fixed by prior developments can be called“choices” or “decisions”. They are in some sense “free”, because they arenot completely fixed by what has come before.The second great twentieth-century change is in science’s idea of thenature of “matter”, or of the “material universe”, which I take to be thatpart of nature that is completely controlled by mathematical laws analogousto the laws of classical physics. The material universe can no longer beconceived to consist simply of tiny objects similar to small billiard balls,or even things essentially like the electric and magnetic fields of classicalphysics. Opinions of physicists differ on how best to understand what liesbehind the phenomena described so accurately by quantum theory. But theidea most widely accepted by quantum physicists is, I believe, the one ofHeisenberg. According to this idea the “material universe” consists of noneof the things of classical physics. It consists rather of “objective tendencies”,or “potentialities”. These tendencies are tendencies for the occurrence of“quantum events”. It is these quantum events that are considered to bethe actual things in nature, even though the potentialities are also real insome sense. Each actual event creates a new global pattern of potentialities.Thus the basic process of nature is no longer conceived to be simply auniformmathematically determined gradual evolution. Rather it consistsof an alternating sequence of two very different kinds of processes. The

first phase is a mathematically controlled evolution of the potentialities forthe next quantum event. This first phase is deterministic, and the laws thatcontrol it are closely analogous to the laws of classical physics. The nextphase is a quantum event. This event is not, in general, strictly controlledby any known physical law, although collections of events exhibit statisticalregularities. Thus each individual quantum event creates a new world ofpotentialities, which then evolves in accordance with certain deterministicmathematical laws. These potentialities define the “tendencies” for the nextevent, and so on. Each quantum event, because it is not fixed by anything inthe physicist’s description of prior nature represents a “choice”. The criticalfact is that each such choice can actualize a macroscopic integrated patternof activity in the newly created material universe of potentialities.The third great twentieth-century change in science is the recognitionof a profound wholeness in nature, of a fundamental inseparability andentanglement ofthose aspects of nature that have formerly been conceivedto be separate. The apparent separateness of ordinary physical objects turnsout, in this view of nature, to be a statistical effect that emerges from themultiple actions of many quantum events. It is only at the level of theindividual events that the underlying wholeness reveals itself.

Science and a New Vision of Man:

The most important consequence of this altered vision of nature is theplace it provides for human minds. Consciousness is no longer forcedto be an impotent spectator to a mechanically determined flow of physicalevents. Conscious events can be naturally identified with certain specialkinds of quantum events, namely quantum events that create large-scaleintegrated patterns of neuronal activity in human brains. These events represent“choices” that are not strictly controlled by any known physical laws.Each such event in the brain influences the course of subsequent events inthe brain, body, and environment through the mechanical propagation of thepotentialities created by that event.This revised idea of man in relation to nature has profound moral implications.In the first place, it shows that the pernicious mechanical idea ofman and nature that arose from seventeenth-century science was dependentupon assumptions that no longer rule science.Contemporary science certainly allows human consciousness to exercise

effective top-down control over human brain processes. Hence the ideathat man is not responsible for his acts has no longer any basis in science.Moreover, the separateness of man within nature that had formerly seemed to

be entailed by science is now reversed. The image of man described aboveplaces human consciousness in the inner workings of a nonlocal globalprocess that links the whole universe together in a manner totally foreignto both classical physics and the observations of everyday life. If the worldindeed operates in the way suggested by Heisenberg’s ontology then we areall integrally connected into some not-yet-fully-understood global processthat is actively creating the form of the universe.The strongest motives of men arise from their perception of themselvesin relation to the creative power of the universe. The religious wars of pastand recent history give ample evidence that men will gladly sacrifice everymaterial thing, and even their lives, in the name of their convictions on theseissues. Thus the quantum-mechanical conception of man described above,infused into the global consciousness, has the capacity to strongly affectmen’s actions on a global scale.Science recognizes no authority whose ex cathedra pronouncements canbe claimed to express a divine will. Nevertheless, this new conception ofthe universe emphasizes an intricate and profound global wholeness and itgives man’s consciousness a creative, dynamical, and integrating role in theintrinsically global process that forms the world around us. This conceptionof man’s place in nature represents a tremendous shift from the idea of manas either conqueror of a mindless nature, or as a helpless piece of protoplasmstruggling for survival in a meaningless universe. Just this conceptual shiftalone, moving the minds of billions of people empowered by the physicalcapacities supplied by science, would be a force of tremendous magnitude.Implicit in this conceptual shift in man’s perception of his relationship to therest of nature is the foundation of a new ethics, one that would conceive the“self” of self-interest very broadly, in away thatwould include in appropriatemeasure all life on our planet.

Quantum theory leads naturally to a rationally coherent conceptionof the whole of man in nature. It is profoundly different from the sunderedmechanical picture offered by classical physics. Like any really new ideathis quantum conception of man has many roots. It involves deep questions:What is consciousness? What is choice? What is chance? What can sciencetell us about the role of these things in nature? How does science itself allowus to transcend Newton’s legacy? It is to these questions that we now turn.

Crap. QM underpins and explains classical physics, it does not contradict or transcend it.

I haven't been following this thread at all because on consciousness it usually goes over old ground. Think of this. What is the mechanism of cooperation in the brain? Do the synapses and neurons cooperate. OK then lets say they do. What are they made of? Cells. So the cell must have a mechanism that cooperates, but wait aren't the cells made up of smaller components all cooperating to keep the cell running? So what are they made of? Oh yeah atoms and they are made of elementary particles. So to understand consciousness truly is to understand that there is something deeply embedded in particle physics that allows consciousness to emerge. It is a principle that overlays matter itself and allows lots of interconnected parts interact as if they were one whole thing. It is like the whole human race having one mind, not just communicating via electronics but all having the same experience at once.

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Even the most obstinately ignorant cannot avoid learning when in an environment that educates.

... It is like the whole human race having one mind, not just communicating via electronics but all having the same experience at once.

There's a difference between entities interacting and cooperating and them all having the same experience at once. The neurons in the brain each have a unique set of connections; if they can be said to experience anything, it's unique to each.

However, I may have missed your point - maybe you could explain it differently?

Quantum theory leads naturally to a rationally coherent conceptionof the whole of man in nature. It is profoundly different from the sunderedmechanical picture offered by classical physics. Like any really new ideathis quantum conception of man has many roots. It involves deep questions:What is consciousness? What is choice? What is chance? What can sciencetell us about the role of these things in nature? How does science itself allowus to transcend Newton’s legacy? It is to these questions that we now turn.

Crap. QM underpins and explains classical physics, it does not contradict or transcend it.

You obviously did not understand what Stapp was saying .The Newtonian classical determinist mechanical view of the world has been superseded and refuted by QT,among other things mentioned by Stapp here above .

... It is like the whole human race having one mind, not just communicating via electronics but all having the same experience at once.

There's a difference between entities interacting and cooperating and them all having the same experience at once. The neurons in the brain each have a unique set of connections; if they can be said to experience anything, it's unique to each.

However, I may have missed your point - maybe you could explain it differently?

How can neurons have any sort of conscious experiences at all , materialist scientist ? Yeah, right , materialism has been assuming that consciousness is just neuronal brain activity , silly me .

What has all that to do with science ?

Has the latter ever been able to link our own subjective conscious states experiences ... to neurons or to ensemble of neurons ? Obviously ...not .

I haven't been following this thread at all because on consciousness it usually goes over old ground. Think of this. What is the mechanism of cooperation in the brain? Do the synapses and neurons cooperate. OK then lets say they do. What are they made of? Cells. So the cell must have a mechanism that cooperates, but wait aren't the cells made up of smaller components all cooperating to keep the cell running? So what are they made of? Oh yeah atoms and they are made of elementary particles. So to understand consciousness truly is to understand that there is something deeply embedded in particle physics that allows consciousness to emerge. It is a principle that overlays matter itself and allows lots of interconnected parts interact as if they were one whole thing. It is like the whole human race having one mind, not just communicating via electronics but all having the same experience at once.

Our micro and macroscopic physical components are indeed intertwined + the whole is not the sum of its parts ,so, QT has implications on the macro level as well of course ,QT that has been discovering the very interface between mind and matter at the quantum level , where the mind does causally actively and dynamically intervene in the physical reality , via a top-down causation .Stapp says that humans are interconnected , through some still unknown process of some sort , but how can we all have the same experience at once ,since consciousness is subjective the content or qualia of which is unique to any given person .I do presume that the whole universe ,including ourselves, is somehow interconnected .Peter Russell's notion of global brain might interest you though : P.Russell should have said the global ...mind in fact ( The brain is just a vehicle or medium for consciousness ) :

The neurons in the brain each have a unique set of connections; if they can be said to experience anything, it's unique to each..

How can neurons have any sort of conscious experiences at all , materialist scientist ?

Who said anything about neurons having conscious experiences? Please don't impose your reading comprehension difficulties on other people's conversations.

Haha

( My alleged reading comprehension difficulties do exist only in your materialist mind : i mostly do not read either your posts or your provided links , for obvious reasons ...to me at least: i just jumped in ,in order to make the new guy aware of your materialist non-sense you have been taking for granted as science , that's all .May i ? haha )

Our hurt materialist scientist becomes sensitive :

Here is your own quote on the subject : how can any alleged experience not be conscious ? :

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The neurons in the brain each have a unique set of connections; if they can be said to experience anything, it's unique to each.

P.S.: This is "my" thread , remember , as this forum is not your property .

"The mind is the matrix of all matter " : said one of the founders of QT .

Absurd how materialists have been eliminating the mind from the physical reality , by believing both in the Cartesian mind-matter separation ,and in their own materialist belief that the mind has no causal effects on matter : weird ,and extremely paradoxical materialist false beliefs which have been taken for granted as science , for so long now .

QT has been debunking all that materialist non-sense that's been taken for granted as science , and more .

There is a common anthropomorphic verbal usage, as in: "The company is experiencing a downturn in profit", "The Earth experienced an unusually powerful solar wind".

The phrase, "If they can be said to experience anything.." is an explicit indication that the usage is questionable, intended to avoid the very interpretation you imposed; if not a reading comprehension difficulty or carelessness, a deliberate misreading.

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P.S.: This is my thread , remember

Starting a thread here doesn't give you ownership or any privileges. Anyone can contribute.

There is a common anthropomorphic verbal usage, as in: "The company is experiencing a downturn in profit", "The Earth experienced an unusually powerful solar wind".

The phrase, "If they can be said to experience anything.." is an explicit indication that the usage is questionable, intended to avoid the very interpretation you imposed; if not a reading comprehension difficulty or carelessness, a deliberate misreading.

My internet connection has been experiencing some trouble as well haha ,as my coffee-machine did experience some weird "coughing and dance vibrations " this morning ...as my car was experiencing some sort of moaning ,during the course of the day ...Since consciousness is just neuronal activity , then , we should assume that neurons or ensemble of neurons do have conscious experiences , in the literal sense haha , via some sort of materialist magical computation ,the latter that gives birth to some patterns ,don't you think ?

Nevermind : something is telling me some of my neurons are gathering together to conspire against me,the bastards , by triggering some sort of confusion in my head ,to the point where that makes me look for hidden meanings or for some sort of Freudian slips of the tongue which might be embedded in peoples' words ....

Quote

Quote

P.S.: This is my thread , remember

Starting a thread here doesn't give you ownership or any privileges. Anyone can contribute.

[/quote]

Including myself thus , and i can jump in in any discussion here whatsoever ,unless you would mind me doing so, via some sort of weird materialist inquisitory veto of some sort ....

P.S.: Do you think anti-matter does really exist in space somewhere ?

Anti-matter plays a significant role in "Angels and Demons " fictitious thriller by Dan Brown .

Final note :

How can such an intelligent and erudite scientist such as yourself assume that consciousness is just brain activity , or that consciousness has no effects on matter ?

Science has never been able so far to tell us almost anything about the mind-brain interaction , untill QT showed up .

So, why do you reject the subject nature of QT as explicitly expressed by its founders and by other great minds such as Stapp and others ?

How can you deny the undeniable fact that the mind -matter separation is a scientific myth ?, and hence the mind does always intervene in the physical reality

I wonder why you , materialists , do think that your own false materialist extensions of your false materialist world view that has been equated with science , i wonder why you do take your false materialist views for granted as science or as valid arguments ? , by quoting materialist scientists ....= what a paradox .

If you want to try to refute Stapp's dualist QT theory of consciousness that has been supported by the dualist scientific nature of QT , then you must try to do just that via science , not via materialism : see the difference ?

So basically what you’re saying is “I expect you to read the excerpts that support my view, but I’m not interested in reading any of your references. Not only that but, if you even raise questions about any of my sources, I won’t discuss it, but simply tell you to re-read it, followed by insults and ridicule for not agreeing with me.”

I wonder why you , materialists , do think that your own false materialist extensions of your false materialist world view that has been equated with science , i wonder why you do take your false materialist views for granted as science or as valid arguments ? , by quoting materialist scientists ....= what a paradox .

If you want to try to refute Stapp's dualist QT theory of consciousness that has been supported by the dualist scientific nature of QT , then you must try to do just that via science , not via materialism : see the difference ?

So basically what you’re saying is “I expect you to read the excerpts that support my view, but I’m not interested in reading any of your references. Not only that but, if you even raise questions about any of my sources, I won’t discuss it, but simply tell you to re-read it, followed by insults and ridicule for not agreeing with me.”

No, lady :I did not say anything different from my above displayed words to you which you just quoted here above .

In short :

Try to talk science , not materialism, if you wanna refute Stapp's dualist interpretation of QT which has been supported by the scientific dualist nature of QT .

P.S.: Materialist scientists do equate and mix their materialism with science ,since materialism has been equated with science , for so long now , so, they cannot but deliver a high lethal dose of materialist non-sense within their scientific views .

The “scientific worldview” is immensely influential because the sciences have been so successful.They touch all our lives through technologies and through modern medicine. Our intellectual world has been transformed by an immense expansion of knowledge, down into the most microscopic particles of matter and out into the vastness of space, with hundreds of billions of galaxies in an ever expanding universe.Yet in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when science and technology seem to be at the peak of their power, when their influence has spread all over the world and when their triumph seems indisputable, unexpected problems are disrupting the sciences from within. Most scientists take it for granted that these problems will eventually be solved by more research along established lines, but some, including myself, think they are symptoms of a deeper malaise.In this book, I argue that science is being held back by centuries-old assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The sciences would be better off without them: freer, more interesting and more fun.The biggest scientific delusion of all is that science already knows the answers. The details still need working out but, in principle, the fundamental questions are settled.Contemporary science is based on the claim that all reality is material or physical. There is no reality but material reality. Consciousness is a by-product of the physical activity of the brain. Matter is unconscious. Evolution is purposeless. God exists only as an idea in human minds, and hence in human heads.These beliefs are powerful, not because most scientists think about them critically but because they don’t. The facts of science are real enough; so are the techniques that scientists use, and the technologies based on them. But the belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith, grounded in a nineteenth-century ideology.This book is pro-science. I want the sciences to be less dogmatic and more scientific. I believe that the sciences will be regenerated when they are liberated from the dogmas that constrict them.

The scientific creed:

Here are the ten core beliefs that most scientists take for granted:1. Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own. Even people are machines, “lumbering robots,” in Richard Dawkins’s vivid phrase, with brains that are like genetically programmed computers.2. All matter is unconscious. It has no inner life or subjectivity or point of view. Even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the material activities of brains.3. The total amount of matter and energy is always the same (with the exception of the Big Bang, when all the matter and energy of the universe suddenly appeared).4. The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at the beginning, and they will stay the same forever.5. Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.6. All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic material, DNA, and in other material structures.7. Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. When you look at a tree,the image of the tree you are seeing is not “out there,” where it seems to be, but inside your brain.8. Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at death.9. Unexplained phenomena such as telepathy are illusory.10. Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.Together, these beliefs make up the philosophy or ideology of materialism, whose central assumption is that everything is essentially material or physical, even minds. This belief system became dominant within science in the late nineteenth century, and is now taken for granted. Many scientists are unaware that materialism is an assumption: they simply think of it as science, or the scientific view of reality, or the scientific worldview. They are not actually taught about it, or given a chance to discuss it. They absorb it by a kind of intellectual osmosis.In everyday usage, materialism refers to a way of life devoted entirely to material interests, a preoccupation with wealth, possessions and luxury. These attitudes are no doubt encouraged by the materialist philosophy, which denies the existence of any spiritual realities or non-material goals, but in this book I am concerned with materialism’s scientific claims, rather than its effects on lifestyles.In the spirit of radical skepticism, I turn each of these ten doctrines into a question. Entirely new vistas open up when a widely accepted assumption is taken as the beginning of an inquiry, rather than as an unquestionable truth. For example, the assumption that nature is machine-like or mechanicalbecomes a question: “Is nature mechanical?” The assumption that matter is unconscious becomes “Is matter unconscious?” And so on.In the Prologue I look at the interactions of science, religion and power, and then in Chapters 1 to 10, I examine each of the ten dogmas. At the end of each chapter, I discuss what difference this topic makes and how it affects the way we live our lives. I also pose several further questions, so that any readers who want to discuss these subjects with friends or colleagues will have some useful starting points. Each chapter is followed by a summary.

The credibility crunch for the “scientific worldview”:

For more than two hundred years, materialists have promised that science will eventually explain everything in terms of physics and chemistry. Science will prove that living organisms are complex machines, minds are nothing but brain activity and nature is purposeless. Believers are sustained by the faith that scientific discoveries will justify their beliefs. The philosopher of science Karl Popper called this stance “promissory materialism” because it depends on issuing promissory notes fordiscoveries not yet made.1 Despite all the achievements of science and technology, materialism is now facing a credibility crunch that was unimaginable in the twentieth century.In 1963, when I was studying biochemistry at Cambridge University, I was invited to a series of private meetings with Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner in Brenner’s rooms in King’s College, along with a few of my classmates. Crick and Brenner had recently helped to “crack” the genetic code. Both were ardent materialists and Crick was also a militant atheist. They explained there were two major unsolved problems in biology: development and consciousness. They had not been solved because thepeople who worked on them were not molecular biologists—or very bright. Crick and Brenner were going to find the answers within ten years, or maybe twenty. Brenner would take developmental biology, and Crick consciousness. They invited us to join them.Both tried their best. Brenner was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work on the development of a tiny worm, Caenorhabdytis elegans. Crick corrected the manuscript of his final paper on the brain the day before he died in 2004. At his funeral, his son Michael said that what made him tick was notthe desire to be famous, wealthy or popular, but “to knock the final nail into the coffin of vitalism.”(Vitalism is the theory that living organisms are truly alive, and not explicable in terms of physics and chemistry alone.)Crick and Brenner failed. The problems of development and consciousness remain unsolved. Many details have been discovered, dozens of genomes have been sequenced, and brain scans are ever more precise. But there is still no proof that life and minds can be explained by physics and chemistry alone(see Chapters 1, 4 and .The fundamental proposition of materialism is that matter is the only reality. Therefore consciousness is nothing but brain activity. It is either like a shadow, an “epiphenomenon,” that does nothing, or it is just another way of talking about brain activity. However, among contemporary researchers in neuroscience and consciousness studies there is no consensus about the nature of minds.Leading journals such as Behavioural and Brain Sciences and the Journal of Consciousness Studies publish many articles that reveal deep problems with the materialist doctrine. The philosopher David Chalmers has called the very existence of subjective experience the “hard problem.” It is hard because it defies explanation in terms of mechanisms. Even if we understand how eyes and brains respond tored light, the experience of redness is not accounted for.In biology and psychology the credibility rating of materialism is falling. Can physics ride to the rescue? Some materialists prefer to call themselves physicalists, to emphasize that their hopes dependon modern physics, not nineteenth-century theories of matter. But physicalism’s own credibility rating has been reduced by physics itself, for four reasons.First, some physicists insist that quantum mechanics cannot be formulated without taking into account the minds of observers. They argue that minds cannot be reduced to physics because physics presupposes the minds of physicists.2Second, the most ambitious unified theories of physical reality, string and M-theories, with ten and eleven dimensions respectively, take science into completely new territory. Strangely, as Stephen Hawking tells us in his book The Grand Design (2010), “No one seems to know what the ‘M’ standsfor, but it may be ‘master’, ‘miracle’ or ‘mystery.’ ” According to what Hawking calls “modeldependent realism,” different theories may have to be applied in different situations. “Each theory may have its own version of reality, but according to model-dependent realism, that is acceptable so long as the theories agree in their predictions whenever they overlap, that is, whenever they can bothbe applied.”3 String theories and M-theories are currently untestable so “model-dependent realism” can only be judged by reference to other models, rather than by experiment. It also applies to countless other universes, none of which has ever been observed. As Hawking points out, M-theory has solutions that allow for different universes with different apparent laws, dependingon how the internal space is curled. M-theory has solutions that allow for many different internal spaces, perhaps as many as 10500, which means it allows for 10500 different universes, each with its own laws … The original hope of physics to produce a single theory explaining the apparent laws of our universe as the unique possible consequence of a few simple assumptions may haveto be abandoned.4Some physicists are deeply skeptical about this entire approach, as the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin shows in his book The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science and What Comes Next (2008).5 String theories, M-theories and “model-dependent realism” are a shaky foundation for materialism or physicalism or any other belief system, as discussed in Chapter 1.Third, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, it has become apparent that the known kinds of matter and energy make up only about 4 percent of the universe. The rest consists of “dark matter” and “dark energy.” The nature of 96 percent of physical reality is literally obscure (see Chapter 2).Fourth, the Cosmological Anthropic Principle asserts that if the laws and constants of nature had been slightly different at the moment of the Big Bang, biological life could never have emerged, andhence we would not be here to think about it (see Chapter 3). So did a divine mind fine-tune the laws and constants in the beginning? To avoid a creator God emerging in a new guise, most leading cosmologists prefer to believe that our universe is one of a vast, and perhaps infinite, number ofparallel universes, all with different laws and constants, as M-theory also suggests. We just happen to exist in the one that has the right conditions for us.6This multiverse theory is the ultimate violation of Occam’s Razor, the philosophical principle that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity,” or in other words, that we should make as few assumptions as possible. It also has the major disadvantage of being untestable.7 And it does not evensucceed in getting rid of God. An infinite God could be the God of an infinite number of universes.8 Materialism provided a seemingly simple, straightforward worldview in the late nineteenth century, but twenty-first-century science has left it behind. Its promises have not been fulfilled, and itspromissory notes have been devalued by hyperinflation. I am convinced that the sciences are being held back by assumptions that have hardened intodogmas, maintained by powerful taboos. These beliefs protect the citadel of established science, but act as barriers against open-minded thinking.

For those who still deny the undeniable fact that the false materialist world view , philosophy , conception of nature , ideology ...has been taken for granted as "the scientific world view " ,as science,without question, since the 19th century at least and counting : see above then .

Anti-matter plays a significant role in "Angels and Demons " fictitious thriller by Dan Brown .

Dan Brown tells entertaining stories, but he doesn't let scientific knowledge, accuracy, or plausibility get in the way []

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How can such an intelligent and erudite scientist such as yourself assume that consciousness is just brain activity , or that consciousness has no effects on matter ?

Lol! yeah, right - so now I've suddenly gone from a narrow-minded idiot hypocrit(sic) materialist whose views and arguments are worthless and which you will not read; and a "false deceptive missionnary jesuit priest selling illusions, delusions , lies ,deceit, half-truths", to an intelligent and erudite scientist []

In answer to your question - I've already explained my views on that.

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why do you reject the subject nature of QT as explicitly expressed by its founders and by other great minds such as Stapp and others ?

I've already explained my views on that.

Quote

How can you deny the undeniable fact that the mind -matter separation is a scientific myth ?, and hence the mind does always intervene in the physical reality

I've already explained my views on that too.

That you appear to have understood very little of it is unfortunate, but rather than ask for explanation, you were typically insulting. Your choice.

I could equally ask you how you can assert the converse for each of those questions, but I've tried it several times already and you had nothing to offer but insults and uncommented tracts from fringe works.

If the extreme swings of mood and emotion shown in your posts are an honest reflection of changes in your mental state, I strongly recommend you to see a qualified mental health professional.

So basically what you’re saying is “I expect you to read the excerpts that support my view, but I’m not interested in reading any of your references. Not only that but, if you even raise questions about any of my sources, I won’t discuss it, but simply tell you to re-read it, followed by insults and ridicule for not agreeing with me.”

... It is like the whole human race having one mind, not just communicating via electronics but all having the same experience at once.

There's a difference between entities interacting and cooperating and them all having the same experience at once. The neurons in the brain each have a unique set of connections; if they can be said to experience anything, it's unique to each.

However, I may have missed your point - maybe you could explain it differently?

I don't see the point as it would get lost in all the mud slinging going on. I am sure you will agree. I despair sometimes.

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Even the most obstinately ignorant cannot avoid learning when in an environment that educates.